Skin cancers, and many other skin diseases such as eczema, shingles etc., may present in a variety of types having varying degrees of seriousness. While many types of skin diseases are not considered life threatening, some forms of melanoma are considered both aggressive and deadly. Additionally, while eczema and shingles are not considered life threatening, they can be extremely painful and debilitating. Therefore, a skin disease screening process which allows for quick and non-invasive assessment of a given skin anomaly is potentially lifesaving or at least quality of life improving.
One technique for assessing potential skin damage is to view a selected region of skin under ultra-violet (“UV”), covering the wavelength range from two hundred and ninety-two to four hundred nanometers (292-400 nm) or infrared (“IR”), covering the light range from roughly seven hundred nanometers to one millimeter (700 nm to 1 mm) photo imaging. This technique permits portions of the selected region of skin to be viewed for sun damage, melanomas, eczemas, shingles etc., which may not be readily apparent with the naked eye.
Most forms of UV and IR photography involve expensive cameras and associated equipment therefore a less expensive method which utilizes the camera feature typically found on modern mobile phones is desired. Among these are found in: U.S. Pat. App. Pub. Nos. 2016/0166194; 2016/0040978; and 2014/0285812. These prior art references are representative of devices which interact with the camera of a mobile telephone to assist in the detection of skin disease.
However, none of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the invention as claimed. Thus, a need exists for a method to utilize the camera of a mobile telephone to detect skin anomalies including melanoma and a wide variety of other diseases in a manner which is simple and cost-effective. The attachable light filter for a mobile telephone camera accomplishes this task.